“Smart and stylish” — Chicago Classical Review
Mission
The Newberry Consort brings together singers and instrumentalists of the highest caliber to create historically informed performances of music from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque, and beyond. By integrating historical performance and research with contemporary themes and multimedia, we inspire audiences, musicians, and scholars by providing a window into earlier times and diverse cultures. The Consort continues to uplift Chicago’s early music community through mentorships, teaching, and engagement of local artists.
A Chicago Legacy
Based in Chicago and sought after all over the globe, the Consort has appeared at the prestigious Boston, Utrecht and Regensberg early music festivals, performed in Italy and England, and been featured at music festivals and series throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The Consort’s impressive album archive under the Harmonie Mundi and Navona Records labels includes the acclaimed Music for Severall Friends (1996), Villon to Rabelais (1999), A Candle in the Dark (2006), and the groundbreaking Juan de Llienas’s Vespers (2021) for Baroque instruments and women’s voices.
The Consort has been the ensemble-in-residence at various universities throughout the Chicago area, where they perform their concert series on the campuses and engage in classroom visits, coaching, open rehearsals, and direction for period ensembles and student projects. Residencies have included the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and, currently, Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts.
From the very start, The Consort has performed unusual repertoires and explored early music in new ways. Founded in 1986 by musicologist Howard Mayer Brown and early music pioneer Mary Springfels, The Consort began as the Newberry Library’s ensemble-in-residence. Now an independent organization, the Consort continues to offer an annual concert series that draws enthusiastic audiences from all over Chicagoland and beyond.
The first official incarnation of The Newberry Consort under the direction of Springfels featured core musicians Drew Minter (voice), David Hart (flute), and David Douglass (violin). Later, Judith Malafronte (voice) Kevin Mason (lute), and Ellen Hargis (voice) joined the Consort. Personnel gradually changed over the years, and after Mary Springfels’s retirement in 2007, David Douglass took over as director, with Hargis becoming artistic co-director in 2009. The duo continued the Consort’s cutting-edge work in early music performance until their retirement in 2022. They passed the artistic leadership baton to Liza Malamut, a historical trombonist and scholar, who leads the Consort today.
Malamut shares her predecessors’ deep love and commitment to innovative performance and historical integrity, and continues to present creative, multi-dimensional concerts that engage the highest caliber musicians from Chicago and beyond. Malamut is passionate about continuing to uplift and nurture Chicago’s early music scene, and is dedicated to continuing The Newberry Consort’s important legacy in historical performance, education, innovation, and love for the field of early music.
